Bad credit is the most serious immediate threat to the economy according to a recent report by the National Association of Business Economics. The country&39;s economists feel that bad credit - especially loan defaults and excessive debt - was a larger near-term concern than terrorism, gas prices, inflation and government spending.

This shift happened very quickly. In March, the study showed that 35% of economists felt that terrorism was the biggest risk. Now only 20% said it was their biggest worry:

"Financial market turmoil has shifted the focus away from terrorism and toward subprime and other credit problems as the most important near-term threats to the U.S. economy," said Carl Tannenbaum, president of NABE and the chief economist at LaSalle Bank/ABN Amro.

Economists did report that they expect the credit crisis to be fairly short lived, under 5 years. Medical care costs and an aging population were cited as the greatest long-term risks. Click here to read the complete report from the Associated Press.

Emily Davidson – Credit.com&39;s Communication Director and former TransUnion credit expert. Emily writes about credit reports, credit scores, loans and personal finance as the CreditBloggers.com moderator.